Of all the things that affect how well an online shop performs, category structure is one of the least glamorous — and one of the most impactful. It's also one of the most common things done poorly on shops we're asked to rebuild or improve.
What bad category structure looks like
Products listed in a single uncategorised list. Categories that are too broad to be useful ("All products"). Subcategories that don't reflect how customers actually think about the range. New products added without a logical home, so they end up buried.
When a customer lands on a shop like this, they have to work to find what they want. Most won't bother.
What good category structure looks like
Good categories reflect the customer's perspective, not the business owner's internal logic. If someone is looking for a birthday gift under £30, they should be able to find that quickly. If they're looking for a specific size or type of product, there should be a clear path to it.
Categories should be specific enough to be useful, broad enough not to fragment the range unnecessarily, and consistent so customers know what to expect.
Product feeds and keeping things current
Another common gap is the absence of any mechanism for surfacing new products. Customers who have visited before want to see what's new. A shop with no way to browse recent additions, no "new in" section, and no notifications for returning customers is missing an easy way to drive repeat business.
Keeping product listings current and surfacing new stock clearly is a basic expectation — and one that pays off in return visits and higher average order values.
Getting it right from the start
Category structure is much easier to get right at the beginning of a build than to fix later. When we take on an ecommerce project, mapping out the category structure is one of the first conversations we have.
Find out more about how we approach ecommerce builds or read about how to choose an ecommerce web designer in South Wales.